


Something More Than Moral Support

by Leni



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 11:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2426582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard Hoftstadter meets John Watson. The 'Roommate Agreement' is eventually explained.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something More Than Moral Support

**Author's Note:**

> Written for GGhardy at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/562891.html?thread=79228107#t79285195). Prompt: **"Stop leaving your body parts everywhere. They stink!"** (post-it challenge)

_It feels good to get away from home,_ Leonard thinks, looking around the hotel bar. It's not his kind of place, starting with their request that he wear a tie, and the fact that the price tags attached to every available ware are higher than what he's used to - including, he's found out after a very awkward exchange, some of the smooth ladies flitting around.

No, it's not his usual scene. But the places he frequents include his best friends prodding and teasing him into asking out a complete stranger, regardless of the status of his relationship with Penny, and whatever he does, he always ends up making a fool of himself.

So, yes, this place, strange and unfamiliar as Leonard finds it, also has its charms.

The bar is upscale and beyond his means, but Sheldon had been adamant that they stayed at this hotel, close to the main speakers at the event, and had actually offered to cover for the difference. Leonard suspects there will be several attempts to push Sheldon's latest discoveries onto the unsuspecting physicists who are staying here as well, but he chose not to ask and be able to claim no previous knowledge of his friend's actions when the judge - and there's always a judge involved when Sheldon gets this interactive with complete strangers - calls for his testimony.

There _is_ an advantage to the four of them traveling together: united, they present a front more or less capable to stop Sheldon from self-destruction. So far, Leonard has only managed to distract him from crashing the VIP party by misquoting Captain Picard. He's saving Kirk for an emergency.

"It's going to be a long week," he tells his shot of whiskey. He's been nursing it for so long the ice is long melted and it's no better warm than it was when just served. He should have stuck to his usual taste and asked for the cranberry daiquiri slush. "Here's to avoiding five-to-eight, on charges for stalking," Leonard raises his glass solemnly. "May we get it reduced to the usual restraining order." 

To his surprise, the man next to him meets the toast with his own glass. "Hear, hear," he says, grinning a little.

Leonard rounds toward the stranger. He looks to be some years older - not more than a decade, Leonard quickly calculates, but perhaps less if it's the exhaustion that adds a few years. Blond and heavier than Leonard, though more muscled as well, the man brings his glass back down, giving him a friendly smile.

His mother may have encouraged him to speak to strangers, in the spirit of research and perhaps as a desperate attempt to get rid of his shyness, but Leonard never took to that lesson. "Eh... hello?"

"Sorry," the other guy apologizes, the syllables carrying a British accent, "I heard you, about avoiding jail time. Couldn't help drinking to the idea."

That... is not normal. "Ah," Leonard says, with a sinking feeling that it's impossible to edge away from someone when sitting on a tall stool. 

The stranger must have noticed his fleeing attempt, because he winces and laughs a little under his breath. "I'm not actually a stalker, promise."

"i _know_ that," Leonard says, forcing a laugh. Stalling.

"Let me explain. My partner - _work_ partner -" He frowns. "Roommate. Yes. My roommate has dragged me here for work. Problem is, Sherlock's pretty single-minded and I'm sure I'm going to end up explaining to the local police force about how he's too focused on his objective to behave in any normal pattern, and that, whatever they've caught him at, it actually _wasn't_ a murder attempt." He gives a resigned sigh. "So you can see how I'd join your toast."

Leonard can sympathize with that. "Yeah, I do," he says, offering his hand. "Leonard."

The other guy takes it with a grin. "John."

Introductions made, Leonard gets back to a comfortable position and faces his new acquaintance fully. "I understand better than you'd believe. _My_ roommate didn't drag me here - this time. We're here for the conference week, though now that Dr. Paredes passed away on his first night in town, it's not as interesting anymore." He flinches at his own words. "That's a callous thing to say. I didn't-"

The stranger waves him off. "Think nothing of it. Dr. Paredes's death has caused its own set of troubles for me."

Leonard frowns at that, but decides not to ask. "Yeah, well. Most of us," -he waves a himself and around the bar, where several colleagues sit in small groups or, like him, quietly by themselves- "we're using the downtime to relax a little. Unwind. It _can_ get a little tough, having so many scientists in a single place," he confesses. "Each of us has a different project, and we _are_ a competitive breed."

"No kidding," John says. "Getting those grants must be tough."

Leonard nods. He's never entered that race in earnest, but he's heard the stories. When he does, he thanks every deity available that Sheldon has never been in it for the money. Not because Sheldon might do too well in that game, though that's scary enough, but because it's more plausible that the backstabbing would make mincemeat of his friend. For all that they complain about Sheldon's lack of empathy, he doesn't have a _truly_ mean bone in his body.

"Exactly," he answers. "And with one of the big shots in that area now gone and dead" -he tries, mostly successfully, to make a whistling sound- "it's gonna be shark season in the Physics department."

John lifts an eyebrow at the information. "Interesting," he mutters before taking a swig from his drink. It looks to be a stiff one, but unlike Leonard he doesn't choke on it or need a moment before recovering his voice "So... this roommate of yours..."

"Sheldon," Leonard supplies.

"Yes, thank you. Is Sheldon disappointed by Dr. Paredes's absence as well?"

It's a strange question to ask, but Leonard doesn't judge other people's bumbling attempts to keep the conversation going. 

"Sheldon? Nah. He's too busy trying to convince Dr. Beeton to drop his current research and replace it with his own. Right now, he must be following the guy into completely inappropriate places." He sighs. "I'd step in, but I've learned to wait until it escalates, or he'll never - and I mean _never_ \- let it go. Well, if I manage not to get roped in, that is." He gulps down the rest of his drink, by now so watered down that he can barely taste the alcohol. "In fact, I'm hiding here so he doesn't bring up our roommate agreement. I'm pretty sure clause 19 obligates me to help him in case of 'unforeseen events that lead to the head of a department dropping dead in the middle of an international event'." He sees John's eyebrows draw in consternation, and realizes he's grown so used to complaining about Sheldon's eccentricities within their little group of friends, that a part of him expects people to understand the background story. "Um. It's not actually a legally binding contract - I hope - but more of a long-standing practical joke."

"And it makes you do potentially illegal acts?"

Amazingly, the man sounds less shocked than anyone who's ever heard Leonard's side of the story. Instead he looks... sympathetic?

Leonard shrugs. "It's not that bad. It works both ways - sometimes. I'm allowed to set limitations as long as I e-mail them in a week beforehand. Like, for example" -and he smirks a little at his foresight- "forbidding him to come into the hotel bar."

"And he abides by that?"

"Until he figures out a way to tweak his own rules. But he's distracted, so I should have a couple nights before that happens."

By now, John is looking intrigued. "Impressive," he says. "You've found a way to let your roommate hang with his own rope."

Leonard frowns at the imagery. "That's a rather dark take of the situation but, yes, pretty much."

"I've tried to find a way to curtail Sherlock's behavior. Face-to-face conversations, show-and-tells, post-it notes on relevant locations-"

"Not the post-it notes." Leonard cringes. "Did he correct your grammar as well?"

John shakes his head. "He never even acknowledged them."

"Yeah. Sheldon tried that when I kept posting notes all along the hallway about his weekly one-person fire drills _not_ being appreciated."

"Mine asked him to stop leaving his body parts everywhere. They stank so bad! Oh-" he cut himself off, probably having seen Leonard's horrified look. "They were for Sherlock's experiments."

"I see." He does. He _has_ seen the brains Bernadette leaves at Howard's place sometimes. Leonard still feels queasy at the idea. He never imagined there might be a worse roommate than Sheldon Cooper, but... "You win."

John's face twists into a sardonic smile. "I always do."

Now Leonard feels bad for the man. He _did_ mean it when he said that the roommate agreement, as one-sided as it is, helps curb Sheldon's behavior. It might have taken him years to realize it, but John doesn't have to suffer for so long. "Hey, John. If you want... if it doesn't sound too crazy..."

"Can't be crazier than a skinned hand in the sink."

"Right." Leonard cringes again. "If you're interested, I do have a copy of the agreement upstairs. It's an amended version, for use in hotels and inns in Western Europe."

"There's a different one for Eastern...?" John shakes his head, but he seems mostly amused. "Of course there is."

"There is," Leonard confirms, and they exchange a smile of commiseration. "You interested?"

John nods. "Can't hurt."

\---

_Thirteen floors above the hotel bar..._

"You are not Dr. Beeton!"

Sherlock straightens from his search through the physicist's closet, but doesn't turn around. He knew he should have brought John along; John would never have allowed an interruption when Sherlock was in the middle of his work. 

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" A pause. "Are you a thief?"

Whoever this man is, he cannot have any more right to be in this room, so he doesn't deserve an explanation.

"If you're a thief, then you should be aware that that's not where Dr. Beeton keeps his valuables," the other mans tells him in obvious exasperation. "Honestly. If you're going to rob a man, the least you can do is proper research." In four long steps, he has reached the bed, flipped over the top cover, and fished under the pillow. "Here."

Sherlock eyes the wallet and gold watch. Typical of a man of Beeton's status. "I'm not interested in that."

The other man looks puzzled, but it quickly gives in to a satisfied smile. "Oh, you're a _corporate spy_ , here to steal all our secrets and hard-won knowledge. Good, good." He rushes over to the small desk mounted on the wall, and bends not to open the front drawer, but to dislodge a false bottom under it. He takes a bunch of papers from it, and then sticks his hand further in and brings out a USB stick. "Here. This is all." Then he gives a triumphant grin. "Now he _will_ have to listen to me."

Mycroft's contacts claim Paredes and Beeton's research is the cause of their deaths 

(Beeton's body must be on its way to the mortuary at this very moment, hence the need to look through his possessions before the law enforcement makes a mess of things)

Considering he's looked though everything else. it stands to reason that this man's find is actually what Sherlock needs. He opens his mouth to tell the stranger that Beeton won't be listening to anything ever again, but the man looks so joyful - and John has been needling at him to improve his social graces.

"Well," he says as he grabs what's being offered. "This has been helpful, Dr. Cooper."

He expects the usual reaction to having been recognized without an introduction, but the anomaly doesn't seem to register. Instead he's already at the doorstep, when the man's annoyed voice crosses the room, "That wasn't a proper thank you!"

 

The End  
08/10/14


End file.
